Features

Joseph Stalin once asked an advisor rather perfunctorily, “How many divisions does the Pope have?” Dr Harry Hagopian, Middle East commentator and Ekklesia associate reminds us. Christians are part of the Middle East and North Africa region and their strength need not lie in their physical might alone, he suggests, surveying the implications of some recent interventions.

A confident and independent Scotland, far from deserting its neighbours, might actually end up being a better friend, argues writer Nick Thorpe, analysing the language used to describe the referendum choices and how it can both lead and mislead.

An independent Scotland could be the start of something even bigger: disaffected voters in England, Wales and Northern Ireland motivated to find a different society, say Molly and John Harvey, senior church figures in Scotland. They write with only days to go before the historic referendum on self-government.

On 24 March 1980 in El Salvador, Archbishop Oscar Romero was celebrating Mass in the chapel of a cancer hospital. In his homily he spoke of the Eucharist as a sacrament of solidarity, justice and peace. Moments later, the Archbishop was shot through the heart. As Pope Francis calls for this courageous and inspiring man to be beatified, Bernadette Meaden highlights the significance of his life and death for Christian social witness, as it resonates across the years.

Operation Protective Edge: here is a new military initiative that has fired up many Israelis, infuriated many Palestinians, left the Arab leaders once more in tatters of nonchalance or fragmentation and challenged the moral fibre of the West in terms of its support or opposition to this campaign. Middle East expert Dr Harry Hagopian looks behind the horror and the headlines from Gaza.

It is is over a month and a half since the last RUSI conference at Church House, focusing as it did on land warfare, and they have been back for more with a focus this time on the “future of air warfare”: Drones, in other words. The Rev Dr Keith Hebden explores the entanglement of the Church of England is military industries and warfare, highlighting the contradictions between this and the mission of Christian peacemaking.

The consequences of a No vote in September’s independence referendum can be envisaged no more sharply than through the lens of the NHS in Scotland, says Dr Willie Wilson, setting out the reasons why a Yes vote in the 18 September 2014 referendum is vital for the sake of its 158,000 workers and for the benefit of everyone in Scotland who needs or will need health services free at the point of need.

Welfare, education and the NHS are all being hit by the same cuts, driven, not by a desire to improve the national debt (which is now significantly worse than 2010), says Virginia Moffatt, but by a poisonous ideology that private profit must come before common good. "So I decided that the time had come to move somewhere, where I can be in a position to challenge that ideology. I have joined Ekklesia as the new Chief Operating Officer, because I can see what an important role a think-tank linking good quality research and ideas to civic action, political change and a positive role for churches and other NGOs can play in influencing mainstream politics. That is what I want to be part of."

The next UK strategic defence and security review won’t be held until 2015, but debate about whether or not Britain should retain its expensive Trident ballistic missile nuclear deterrent is already hotting up.

In both Bethlehem and Jerusalem, Pope Francis offered his home in the Vatican as a place for the encounter of prayer. It was a potentially transformative moment. Now that the event is over, and both presidents have re-iterated their desire for peace, what happens next to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - more so since President Peres completes his term as president of Israel at the end of July? Regional expert and Ekklesia associate Dr Harry Hagopian explores the issues.